


things might get hotter

by gogollescent



Category: Friends at the Table (Podcast)
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-03
Updated: 2017-08-03
Packaged: 2018-12-10 11:31:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 944
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11690745
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gogollescent/pseuds/gogollescent
Summary: Aria and Jacqui write a song together. Well, they're working on it.





	things might get hotter

There’s blood on her face, blood in her hair—her stupid _hair_ , she started wearing it down again when Jacqui moved back in. After that Jacqui gave up on asking for “more time.” She forgot the cold shoulder, left the bed made up on the hover-couch, and now she could kick herself for not having stonewalled Aria to hell, if that meant Aria would practice basic battle safety. Who lets down their hair in a war zone? Not that that’s what got her in trouble. But Jacqui worries all the time about Aria’s decisions, her carelessness and stupid courage, and it’s hard to just switch over, and hate something outside Aria’s control. _If I could talk any sense to her, if I hadn’t come back_ —then, she thinks, she would have a bargaining chip, to make Aria open her eyes. Right now. And what a hassle, Jacqui thinks, it’s not dangerous now, nothing’s really dangerous now, but it’s a pain—they’ll have to comb the dried blood out.

Aria says, “Ow.”

Her eyes stay shut. She has a smile like she needs the smile to stop herself from laughing out loud. She says, “You’re pinching.” Jacqui stops moving her hand, but leaves it meshed in Aria’s hair.

“You’ll pinch yourself. Stay still.”

“Okay.” Dozey softer smile, like after she’s fucked out, too content to make a sincere grab at Jacqui, but still hoping to coax her back by other means. Stupid how it works. Aria’s expression folds down the middle right after. Must be a bad headache. She steals a glance up at Jacqui. “Hey—sweetheart, don’t—”

Jacqui squeezes the bridge of her nose to stop the tears, not bothering to brush away the drops already loose. “Talking is moving, you know that?“

"You’re supposed to keep me talking,” Aria argues. “So I’ll stay awake.”

“Why don’t I talk to you,” says Jacqui. “Unless you’re calling me boring.”

“Oh never.” Aria’s eyelashes, dark and stiff, belong on a doll with actual manners. Without waiting any longer she breaks into the old serenade: “ _[Crowds in the street, and oil on the water…](http://t.umblr.com/redirect?z=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.youtube.com%2Fwatch%3Fv%3D3xpOtLzJeyc%26feature%3Dyoutu.be&t=NTdmYjUwOTRkYWNmNDVjNTU2YjdmNjY2MGU0MWQxNjQyM2FmZjU2ZixZczNGMW0xbA%3D%3D&b=t%3Aig65d2xjeKl_VsH0qTnmZA&p=http%3A%2F%2Fgurguliare.tumblr.com%2Fpost%2F163568710961%2Fgarden-ghoul-replied-to-your-post-heyy-anyone&m=1)_ ”

“Not that. I don’t want to hear about Weight.”

They’re planetside, of course. Most of their war has been ground skirmishes, on Weight. This cave, lit by the nodes on her vest and backed by the distress signal’s purr, was the parking lot under a movie theater. She doesn’t dare poke at the rubble: not with Aria here.

“O-kay. What do you want to sing about?”

Nothing, thinks Jacqui, I just want to get out. Actually, she wants to watch them lift Aria out, though she doesn’t know the first thing about stabilizing a hover-stretcher. And then she wants to get out. On the surface, they won’t be able to hear each other, over Rigor’s thunder. Not until they climb into their mechs, and then it’ll be Aria’s voice, alone, and her face and flightsuit the size of a candle, streaming green out of the comm.

But if they have to fight, she’d rather get back to the fight. She wants to do what Aria wants.

“Sing about home,” she says, reluctantly. “I don’t know. Sing about the fleet.”

“What, OriCon?” Aria hums in the back of her throat. “Compromise,” she says. “I’ll sing you.”

“Is that a compromise?!”

“ _You left and came back, I thought it was awful—but now that you’re back, I start to get thoughtful—_ ”

“Aria Joie hit her head,” Jacqui says slowly. “Aria Joie loses songwriting ability in tragic accident. Word from doctors: ‘It leaked out.’”

“Hold on tighter. Don’t you know I’m counting on you to keep my brains in? What about ‘colossal’? ‘Now that you’re back, it feels just colossal’?”

“My big robo-dick?”

“Yeah, so, ‘my robo-vagina really shrank while you were out, baby.’ That’s a subgenre, isn’t it? Now that there’s a war on?”

“‘I accidentally put my robo-vag through the wash, baby.’ I think that’s just the blues.”

“Oh, well. I always really wanted to muscle in on classical—you know, franchise expansion, some soulless vanity project that would generate a lot of bad press among diehard monkheads and then all the Aria Joie fen would go, ‘oh! yeah! now I _love_ Gregorian chants!’”

“Wait, and JoyPark didn’t agree?”

“I think that’s why they fired me, actually. Well, one reason.”

“But you didn’t do anything like that after.”

“Oh, it’s not the same without the corporate backing. The joy of doing those albums is having all the resources the real _chanteurs_ don’t—so even though it sucks, it still kind of sounds good. And for the experts, it’s such a mixed bag, because on the one hand it’s Aria Joie, but on the other hand it’s the most attention their life’s work is going to get. None of that goes for if I just released it on SoundCloud.”

“Okay.” Jacqui considers. “That’s pretty sadistic.”

“It’s colossal,” says Aria, pushing out her mouth. “Move your hand so I can kiss it.”

“Okay.”

She waits while Aria laps absently at the metal. The panels on her hand respond exaggeratedly to pressure: it feels as though some touch is rolling _through_ her hand, displacing water-thick flesh. This close, too, she takes blows from Aria’s breathing: the long, timed inhale, and the shaky sigh out. “I went away,” Jacqui says at last, not singing—just moving words up and down. “It was awful. Here's still awful. Lately, I choose to stay.”

“Not forever,” says Aria, pausing and rolling her eyes up in her head—not looking at Jacqui: looking around the hole. _Anyway, not here_ , her expression says. “Don’t worry. I won’t let you.” Her earpiece glows red.


End file.
